


5...4...3...2...1!

by Lost_at_Sea



Category: Mean Girls (2004), Mean Girls - Richmond/Benjamin/Fey
Genre: 5 Times, F/F, Rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:55:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28737618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lost_at_Sea/pseuds/Lost_at_Sea
Summary: So I published this inside my Tumblr Prompts thing but then I found it under my WIP on my computer and decided to rewrite it/edit it. I think it's way better now. A year of distance, and a more realistic ending [words wise, don't worry they still get together] I hope you enjoy my entrance back into Rejanis.
Relationships: Regina George/Janis Ian, Regina George/Janis Sarkisian
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	5...4...3...2...1!

It’s three weeks before Regina George’s 13th birthday party. They’re at the local park. It’s just a little too late for the two of them to be out alone, the sun just having set, but Regina lives five minutes away and Janis is just right down the street. 

They’re giggling and running around. Between Regina’s new friends Karen and Gretchen and Regina’s growing popularity, it’s been a while since Regina and Janis have hung out just the two of them. 

“Gretchen is dating Michael now.”

Janis doesn’t respond to that immediately. She doesn’t really care. Michael has red hair and lots of freckles but he’s older than them and he’s on the JV football team. 

They collapse onto the tire swing, knees bumping in the center. 

“Can you imagine dating Michael or one of his friends? I can’t.” Janis chuckles, brushing her long dark hair back. 

Regina looks at her. She looks at her real hard. Over the last few months Regina has started to realize what it takes to keep people’s attention. She’s started to realize that Karen and Gretchen are easily manipulated, that the girls at the school look up to her because of her blonde hair and expensive clothes. It’s already starting to become addicting. 

But Janis grounds her. Janis keeps her on this plane of existence. Janis has never fawned over her like the rest of the girls. And when Janis looks at her in awe, it feels different than when Gretchen or one of Michael’s friends, or anyone else does. 

Before either of them know what’s happening they’re foreheads are pressed together and their eyes are fluttering shut. 

Janis’ phone goes off, it’s a call from her mom wondering where she is. She answers the phone and Regina stares at the ground in shock. Janis doesn’t say anything, Regina just runs off. 

Regina goes home and starts to tell her Dad what happened. She’s always come to her Dad when she’s had problems in the past, because he’s usually lucid enough and stern enough to give her actual advice? But for the first time, the more she speaks to him, the more she realizes she might have chosen wrong.

He cuts her off when he senses where she’s going. “Honey, stop right there. Janis did a bad thing at the park, and I don’t want to hear about anything like it again.” He’s stern and terrifying and instead of that being comforting, instead of it reassuring her that he knows what he’s talking about and his decisions are right, she just feels afraid.

Two days later Regina corners Janis at school and attacks. Janis hasn’t had any time to process what happened or what she wanted to happen or who she is. 

Regina tries to never look back. 

She fails  
•••

Regina George corners Janis at a party at Gretchen’s in the middle of July, spinal-halo removed just a week ago, with honest eyes and apologizes. Janis shuffles her feet together and stares at her hands. 

“It’s ok, I don’t expect you to forgive me. I don’t know where I lost myself so hard along the way, but I think that bus sort of restarted my trajectory.” Her words might be more like the Regina Janis remembers, but the tone is still off. It still makes the hair on the back of Janis’ neck stand on end.

All she does is kind-of groan and tense as she looks at Regina. “It’s not that I don’t want to let go of all this shit and move on. It’s not even that I don’t want to forgive you…”

Regina’s eyes are soft. It sends Janis into some sort of surreal panic, “But you’re not there yet. I get that.” Regina seems tense too, now. “It’s already more than I deserve.”

And before Janis can say anything else, Regina is gone. 

Janis gets tanked, which always leads to bad decisions. 

She’s on the dance floor and then suddenly there’s blonde hair in her face, and then god knows how much time passes, but suddenly someone’s spilt beer all down her shirt and she’s in the bathroom. 

The quiet and bright-light of the bathroom sobers her up a little bit, just enough to notice that Regina George is in there with her and while maybe that should make her nervous, it doesn’t really. She blames it on the alcohol.

Regina wets a towel and starts dabbing at Janis’ shirt. The stain is on Janis’ stomach and Regina grabs the hem and pulls it away from Janis, trying not to touch her.

Janis is in a haze, of too-many people, and too-much tequila, and the cool air coming in from the open window isn’t enough to combat the heat of the house, so she spends the time Regina is cleaning her up, staring. At Regina. Janis’ eyes kind-of lose focus as Regina worries her bottom lip and devotes most of her attention to Janis’ shirt. 

As time passes, and the silence stretches, and the stain starts fading, and the cold water on the towel warms, Regina starts handling the intensity of Janis’ stare less and less well. Her glance keeps darting up more and more often, and for longer and longer and then she drops Janis’ shirt like it’s on fire and murmurs “there” into the silence as she reels backwards. 

Janis takes one step forward and almost falls to the ground. 

She grabs Regina by the collar of her leather jacket to stabilize herself and they both go careening into the wall. Regina is using all of her focus not to crash their heads together so it takes a moment until she focuses on the fact that now that they’re steady, they’re really quite close. Very close. Too close. Regina is staring at Janis’ lips and Janis is far past that. Her lidded eyes start blinking closed as she begins to lean forward when Regina tips her head to the side so Janis is leaned into her, mouth inches from the wall, breathing on Regina’s neck. 

“Janis you’re drunk.”

Janis doesn’t respond. Regina gently starts pushing her away, making sure Janis is steady enough to stand.

“And more to the point,” Regina says in a shadow of her old HBIC voice, “you hate me remember.” It falls flat.

She goes to leave and Janis just barely manages to grab her by the wrist. 

“I don’t hate you.” She says with her brow furrowed in confusion.

“You should.”

She lets Regina go.

It’s not till the next morning that Janis realizes that Regina only stopped for her own benefit. It throws her into a tailspin. 

•••  
“What do you think it means?”

“Honey, I don’t think I need to spell it out for you.”

Janis and Damian are in Damian’s backyard, laying in the grass and looking up at the clouds. It’s two days after the party and Janis is still confused. 

“What do you want it to mean?”

Janis groans and rolls over. “That’s the part I’m afraid of.”

Meanwhile, Regina decides it’s time to fess up to her friends. It’s not like she’s ging to be able to fall further from her pedestal. She invites Gretchen, Cady, and Karen over the Friday night before senior year starts and tries not to snap at them until she finally blurts it out. 

For a minute or two they just kind-of stare at her and Regina feels the impulse to tear them down, or take it back start to drown out the noise around her when Cady smiles at her big and soft. Then suddenly, Karen grins and rolls her eyes “duhhhh Regina, we knew that.” Regina’s jaw drops. “Yeah...” Gretchen says as she slowly grabs Regina’s hand to hold “you’re not alone”. It’s pointed enough that Regina looks at Gretchen pointedly, and can see in her eyes what she means. Regina smiles shakily and Gretchen grins so Regina yells for her mom to buy them some champagne. 

Mrs. George walks into the room, her hair tied back and an apron on.   
“Now you know we’re trying to re-establish a ‘responsible mother-daughter-relationship’ like Dr. Richmond said, honey” 

“Mom I promise it’s worth it.”

At her mother’s unsure look, Regina shyly admits that she’s told her friends about her ‘non-straight experience’ “Just like Dr. Richmond told me to do, Mom.”

Stacy George grins really wide, tears up, and races out of the house to buy the most expensive champagne she can find. 

Her mom comes into her room the next night, when the girls have gone home, and Regina tries very hard to quell the immediate reaction she has that tells her to kick her mom out and lets Stacy sit on her bed, pause her movie, and tell her how much she loves her. 

For the first time in a few years, Regina let’s herself sob it all out. 

•••

She comes to school on Monday and the change is immediately palpable. People kind-of ignore Regina, but they kind-of don’t. She still wears the same clothes, she still walks down the halls with the same attitude, but now the red sea doesn’t part, and she mostly keeps to herself. No one tells Regina’s secret, so a rumor doesn’t spread around school but Regina, Gretchen, Cady, Janis and Damian all end up sitting at the same table, and they all wear little rainbow pins on their backpacks.

It’s a Tuesday in September when Leigh-Anne Turner smacks Janis’ tray out of her hand and spits ‘dyke’ at her. It takes approximately fifteen seconds for Regina to round on her. 

They get in quite the screaming match in the cafeteria. Or, more accurately, Leigh-Anne screams a lot right up in Regina’s face. By the end of the lunch period, Regina has come out to the entire room and she doesn’t even seem to care.

Later that day she’s walking down the hall on the way to history, trying to keep to herself. Not much has happened since lunch, but people sure are whispering. She’s stalking down the hall when suddenly a door opens to her left and Janis Sarkisian is in front of her. 

“Regina.”

Regina nods at her and she goes to walk past her when Janis grabs her wrist. “Regina, wait,” she says as she pulls her into the art studio and shuts the door, trying to avoid a scene.

Regina stands, arms crossed with one hip popped, and has to suddenly fight the urge not to cry.

Janis shuffles awkwardly, and leans against the door; plays with the sleeves of her jacket. 

“Did you need something?” Regina says, shortly. Her walls are up and Janis sighs and looks at her. Regina deflates. “Sorry” she murmurs.

“I wanted- I wanted to say thank you for today. You… you didn’t have to do that.”

Regina is still a little tense, but she moves her head and swings her hair over her shoulder. “Yes I did, Janis.” She takes a step towards her. “Is that how I wanted everyone to find out, no. I imagined coming here for the 10 year reunion with like, the world’s hottest woman on my arm and just like… letting them gag. But there’s only one way I can make up for the things I’ve done, and that’s with the things I do now.”

Janis looks at her. “That’s very wise.” She grins a little. “Who are you and what have you done with Regina George?” 

Regina rolls her eyes good naturedly and steps from foot to foot. It brings her closer to Janis and she smiles weakly. “My mom pays Dr. Richmond like… a lot of money.” 

They grin at each other for a second. Eventually, Regina takes a purposeful step forward until they’re very close. “I’m sorry for everything I put you through, and I’m sorry for giving other people the ammunition and avenue to attack you too.”

Janis sighs and pushes herself off the wall. “I know you are.” 

She looks Regina in the eye. It’s dark and warm and empty in the art studio and in that one moment it’s almost like nothing else exists. Regina’s eyes flick down to Janis’ lips and before she knows what’s happening Janis is leaning in.

She’s so close to Janis, that when she opens her mouth to speak she feels her heart rate quicken at how impossible this has become. “What are we doing?”

Janis blinks twice and just inhales. Regina whips back. She looks Janis right in the eye, says nothing, and leaves. 

Janis’ mind is blank for the rest of the week.

•••

Regina and Janis don’t hang out for a while. Sure they see each other with the group but they try to keep their distance. As Halloween approaches, though, they start seeing each other more and more. They’re planning for the party that Karen is hosting. Karen’s going as a tiger and Gretchen as a bear and they try to get Regina to come as a lion and she laughs full-bellied and tells them to ask Cady. So the three of them go as a lion a tiger and a bear. Aaron sends Cady a picture of the tshirt he’s made that says “Oh My” in block letters and she cries a little, missing him while he’s away. It gets a little sad until Janis starts making fun of him for his crappy handwriting. 

The mathletes are coming as the powerpuff girls which is legendary and sort-of unbeatable, but Regina refuses to tell any of them what she’s coming as. Gretchen is the only one who realizes it’s because she has no idea. 

In the end Gretchen and her stay up late one night and finally decide that Regina should come as sexy-lucifer. It seems fitting. So Regina and Gretchen go shopping and by the Halloween party she’s got her outfit of her classic all white look paired with some wings she got from a costume shop. She’s dented the one wing and dip-dyed the ends a murky grey/black. She received her very first stern lecture from her mom when she ruined the large stockpot in the kitchen making dye and she couldn’t even complain about it. 

Her very favorite part of the whole thing is when Gretchen and her tear up a pair of her white skinny jeans and an old white shirt to complete the look. There’s something cathartic about destroying the jeans she wore most during Junior year.

Damian wants him and Janis to go as Sully and Boo from Monsters Inc. and Janis just stares at him when he asks and then walks away. He chases her down and they compromise on Elton John and Janis Joplin (which they both decide isn’t really a compromise at all). Damian is living for his white suit, white hat, funky glasses, weird bow-tie and the cane he found at the costume shop. Janis wears about a million bracelets, her customary black shorts and patterned fishnets, but trades out her usual tops for a tie-dye shirt and decorates a custom jean vest just for the outfit. She enlists Karen’s help to make it and it’s like Christmas has come early. She buys a pair of huge wire-rim glasses from the thrift store and she lets Damian crimp her hair. They look perfect. 

They roll into the party and as soon as Damian sees Regina in her skin-tight white outfit with just enough skin peaking through the new slashes, he puts down his red solo cup and spends the night monitoring a now-heavily-drinking Janis’ alcohol intake. Unfortunately for Regina, no one is watching her that closely and she’s two and a half sheets to the wind before Aaron comes over, takes her glass and looks at her pointedly. 

She’s not quite to stumbling around drunk but she isn’t super steady on her feet as she wanders outside. It’s her fucking luck that the only other person out there is Janis fucking Sarkisian, looking gorgeous and scuffing her feet as she looks into the fountain that the Smith’s have in their backyard having ducked out when Damian found himself ‘getting to know’ one of the soccer players who’d recently come out.

Regina manages to get to the fountain, and she takes a seat. Janis looks at her, a little warily, and then sits down next to her. 

“Hi.” Regina says, and maybe her smile is leaning towards manic cause Janis’ eyes widen and she splutters out a laugh. 

“You drunk, Regina?”

Regina grins and Janis laughs harder. 

“Where’s your date?”

“Damian? Oh god only knows.”

“No, not Damian.” Regina looks like what she means is obvious, but Janis is honestly confused. 

“That- that girl with the pigtails and the plaid shirt, that was hitting on you inside?”

Janis blushes. “Beth? Ha. No, Beth and I are friends and she’s- she’s not.”

“Oh she’s interested.” Regina says and Janis turns towards her sharply at the bite in Regina’s tone. Regina tries to smile after. It doesn’t quite work. “Who wouldn’t be, though.” She coughs twice in the silence.

Janis sighs and pulls one leg up so she can turn towards Regina. Regina just turns her head. 

“What are you doing, Regina?”

“What do you mean?”

Janis runs a hand through her hair and then over her fishnets. “What do you want?”

“I want a lot of things.” Regina says, and she turns her whole body away from Janis. “I want people to stop staring at me with hatred in their eyes. I want to fix every dumb mistake I made. I want to have all the power I used to have but I don’t want to every have to deal with the guilt of ignoring how I ruined everyone’s lives. I want all of the good of all of that and none of the bad. I took the good and the bad before and now I’m taking none of it. And I know that that’s better, but it doesn’t always feel that way.” She sighs and is silent for a while “Though, I’ve always wanted what I can’t have, so...” She looks at Janis. She’s more intense than Janis has seen her in months. “But I’m trying not to just take things anymore. Doesn’t mean I don’t want them. But now, I ask for what I want. I work for what I want, but I ask for it. And, right now, I want you.” She’s so close to Janis, and this seems to be a theme and Janis might be sober but her head is swimming and Regina George is right there, almost-sort-of-kind-of baring her heart, and what is she supposed to do with that and ---- Janis reels back and sucks in a deep breath. 

Regina turns away from her. 

“Regina.”

“No, it’s ok Janis. A girl gets rejected enough times, you think she’d learn to keep away.” She turns to look at Janis, her eyes wet and red-rimmed. “But there’s always been something about you.”

She leaves. 

They don’t see each other - even at lunch - for a while. 

•••

They’re civil for the next few months, but they don’t interact. Janis, who knows she should just sit down and figure out what she wants from Regina, can’t bring herself to do so. 

So they sit at an impasse, and try to coexist like that for months. 

•••  
In December, they all go ice-skating. And then they go for hot-chocolate. And then they go see a movie. And then they all go back to Cady’s house to do god-knows-what. 

At the end of the night Regina offers to drive Karen, Janis and Damian home. When Damian says she wants to stay the night, Regina’s on edge. Karen ends up leaving with Gretchen and Regina’s terrified. 

But Regina walks to her car and drives Janis home in terse silence and when they get to Janis’ house, Regina gets out. There’s some part of her that’s compelled to walk Janis to her front door. Perhaps it’s the glutton for punishment in her, perhaps it’s because it’s 1am and completely dark, perhaps it’s because she doesn’t want to leave Janis’ company. Whatever the reason, they stand awkwardly on Janis’ front porch for a moment before they both go to speak at the same time. 

“Well, goodnight.” Regina says at the same time that Janis blurts out “are we ever gonna talk about this.”

Regina stares at Janis, blinks dumbly. “Talk about what?”

Janis sighs. “I’m tired of this Regina. I’m tired of this terrible tension between us whenever we’re hanging with the group. I thought we were working past all of that. I thought we were friends.”

Regina scoffs. “We weren’t really friends, Jan.”

Janis shakes her head as if to clear her ears, “What!?”

Regina fires back, “Well, it’s not like we were on even footing. I was hung up on you and you hadn’t really forgiven me yet.”

Janis snorts, “sorry that I didn’t immediately fall into your lap again Regina but need I remind you that you did a lot of shit to me over the years.”

Regina’s angry now. “Yes. Yes I did. But you know what. I’ve apologized to you so many times, and you’ve never even said you were sorry for what you did.”

“Well, maybe I don’t regret it.” Spits Janis. Regina recoils. 

“Well, there’s where we differ I guess.” She’s quieter now, but no less angry. “I forgave you a long time ago Janis. I know I did way worse to you than you did to me, but you’re still the reason my entire life fell apart last year, and sure I’m very grateful for where I am now, but you never seemed to care about what you did to me. Exacerbating the eating disorder I’ve been dealing with for years, exploiting my abandonment issues. It was cruel. And you’ve never once seemed remorseful. I’ve spent all this time crowing at your feet begging forgiveness and you’re going to stand here and blame me for whatever weird tension we have? Yes. I like you. Yes, I pursued you and you said no. But I have been working back up to be your friends for months, and I thought we were at the point where you could trust me to not throw that away over something so petty.”

Janis fires back immediately. “That’s not why I’ve been so distant and you know it.”

They’re close now. Neither is sure how they always end up like this, inches apart”

“Fuck, Regina” Janis continues, “I forgave you a while ago. That’s not… It’s just. It’s all so confusing and I just can’t deal with who you were and who you are and who you want me to be and I just. I want to stop thinking so hard all the time.”

Janis looks into Regina’s eyes

“What do you want, Janis? Not what do you think you should want, or what you think I want, what do you want?”

And it’s in that moment that Janis realizes she hasn’t even asked herself what she wants. Not in a long time. Not really. 

Her answer must read loud and clear on her face because Regina smiles wanly. “Figure that out first” she whispers. Then... she turns to go.

•••

Janis asks herself the question. She asks herself again and again and again. She asks herself what it is about Regina George that has her constantly crawling back for more. She asks herself what it is about Regina George that causes her to lose all her common sense. She asks herself what it is about Regina George that encompasses her mind so completely. 

And meanwhile the two of them start repairing their friendship… again. They hang out with the group and they work to avoid the awkward tension. They hang out with just the girls and stay up trading secrets and watching bad movies. They even start hanging out, just the two of them, and they see movies, and go bowling, and Regina comes to Janis’ art shows and Janis comes over for dinner with Mrs. George. And the palpable difference is Regina. She’s no longer a magnetic force, it’s like she’s flipped some switch and won’t allow any of what used to come across any more. It’s like there’s a film over her eyes, and a barrier between them and at first Janis is thankful for it, and then she begins to hate it. 

She starts to think about every time they’ve almost kissed. She thinks about the feelings she’s felt right before it happened. Anticipation, definitely. Nervousness, a bit. Fear; yes. But there she begins to dig, and dig, and dig, until she figures out just what she’s afraid of. She allows herself to work through the fear of this all being some elaborate trick, she allows their time together to patch over that particular worry. She allows herself to rule out fear of rejection and ridicule and then, one late night sitting with Damain, she finally figures out what she’s so afraid of. 

It’s what it means if she lets herself fall down that path. Regina George ruined her life, and Regina George has spent the better part of 8 months proving she’ll never ruin it again and if they stay where they are it could be a completely harmless experience.

But, if they go down this path and Regina George ruins her life again, in the way that there’s always a chance that the person you are falling in love with could ruin your life, she doesn’t know if she’ll make it out. 

The difference- she figures out, near the end of March on the first warm day in a long while- is that this time she would have to hand her heart over to Regina willingly. She’d have to take that step and only blame herself in the end. And heartache is so much harder when there’s no one else to blame.

She’s sitting on her porch steps waiting to be picked up by the subject of all this worrying, and when Regina steps out of her car and flips her hair over one shoulder as she closes the door and then turns towards the house, Janis finally realizes, she might not be ready to take this chance, might never be, it might never ever ever make sense, never win the cost-benefit analysis, but it’s what she wants. 

She feels it surge up in her and she goes to stand up, and promptly trips down the steps. Regina’s right there to help her up, only laughing in that sort-of ashamed way you laugh at your friend before you find out if they’re seriously hurt after they’ve done something hilarious. But when Janis rights herself, chuckling, and looks in Regina’s smiling eyes, she loses her nerve.   
Instead, she climbs into the passenger seat of Regina’s white Jeep and buckles up and spends the ride in silence. 

They get to the party and Reigna parks, but she doesn’t turn off the car. Instead, she turns towards Janis. 

“What’s up with you tonight?”

“What?” 

“You’re awfully quiet… and jumpy.” Regina says, eyes narrowing at the way Janis had flinched”

“Nothing.”

Regina gets out of the car so Janis does too. Regina crosses around to the passenger side and locks the car. She hesitates and ends up leaning against the door of her white jeep as Janis scuffs her toes on the drive.

“Janis, I know we’re kind of past the whole… adventure of us over the last few months. But I guess I realized there’s something I haven’t said to you yet. And, you know, dying makes you realize that sometimes you just have to say it.”

Janis just stares. 

“I realized that I asked you what you want, but I never told you what I want, and maybe that wasn’t fair.” Regina looks nervous, pulls at the sleeves of her jacket. “And maybe telling you this isn’t 100% fair either but I feel like it has to be better.” Regina looks at her. “I’m not sure what you’ve been thinking about all of this, and I know you don’t really want to think about it, so maybe telling you will allow you to know instead of wonder. The truth is; I want you. All of you. I want the good and the bad. I want the Janis who snorts and the Janis who trips on her front steps and the Janis who has paint in her hair literally every day and the Janis who calls me on my bullshit and the Janis who rolls her eyes at me when I’m a bitch. But more than any of that, I want whatever you want. Friendship? You got it. For me to get out of your life? Maybe not gladly but I’ll do it. More? Helplessly. I mean it, Janis. I just want you to be happy.”

Janis feels like her world is upside down. Regina is pretty. Regina is beautiful. But in that moment, more than anything else, Regina is real. And a real Regina, is what Janis wants. 

So she kisses her. She grabs her by her jacket and kisses her against her white jeep outside of a party at Kevin Gs house and spares one second to think of how impossible all of this is. She kisses her and tries to pour all of those words she can’t quite form into the press of her lips.

But Regina pulls back and looks at her, a million questions in her eyes. 

So Janis exhales. “It took me a while to admit it to myself. But I want you too, Regina. This you. The real you. I guess I didn’t know if you existed.”

Regina smiles, just a little bit of danger in her eyes. “Have I convinced you yet?”

Janis smirks back. “I think so, but I wouldn’t hate a bit more reminding.” And she pulls her back in. 

When they walk into the party hand in hand, Kevin decides to pour the keg on them in celebration and Regina George? She just smiles.


End file.
